Digital Economy

A collection of 37 posts

Artificial Intelligence

OP-ED - AI in Africa's context gap: a PwC partner, a Wits researcher, and a Ghanaian founder walk into the same problem

A PwC partner says African organisations' AI tools are 'pretty useless' without clean data. A Wits computer scientist explains why. And a Ghanaian AI founder is betting he can close the gap. Part 2 of 2

Market Intelligence

POD - Russell Southwood on monopolies, M-Pesa, and candid framings of Africa's digital economy

Analyst and author Russell Southwood reflects on a quarter-century of observing Africa's digital transformation. From yellow pages cold calls to fibre-to-the-home rollouts, Southwood makes the case for holding optimism and realism in the same hand.

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - The US$140-million (R2.4-billion) reality check

PwC’s latest Africa Cloud Business Survey says 98% of African organisations plan to expand their cloud architecture and 37% are implementing agentic AI. A sit-down with the man behind the numbers unearthed qualifications more revealing than the statistics.

Digital Economy

OP-ED - When the crowd becomes the mob: prediction markets and the price of 'truth'

A journalist threatened over a betting market. Insider trading on military strikes. Billions wagered on geopolitical chaos. The question must be asked: are prediction markets indispensable truth machines or sophisticated casinos with geopolitical consequences.

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - What good navigation looks like: no machine sails itself

From Block's standing ovation to Monday.com's manifesto to a South African consultancy that started with the social system, Part 3 asks what good AI navigation actually looks like when you prioritise the human element and demand results over rhetoric.

Fintech

POD - Seyi Ebenezer on why African startups should stop chasing cheques and start building books

Payaza's co-founder and CEO Seyi Ebenezer makes the case for debt over venture capital, explains why credit ratings are the ultimate negotiating weapon for African founders, and passionately advances the idea of a pan-African credit rating agency built by the continent, for the continent.

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - The mine, the machine, and the intern

From post-WW2 coal mines to modern codebases, history suggests AI transformation will rise or fall not on technical capability alone, but on whether organisations deliberately redesign the social systems that surround the machine.

Artificial Intelligence

OP-ED - How solo sailors sleep

Solo sailors don't forecast the ocean. They set an alarm and pay attention. In the age of AI disruption, that pragmatic sensibility turns out to be rarer and more valuable than anyone is admitting.

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - My former teacher wants to put a conscience in AI. I have thoughts.

Smart legal contracts might be AI's best guardrail. But the system they're designed to protect was never neutral to begin with.

Artificial Intelligence

POD - Natasha Blycha on why AI without law is just code without conscience

Emerging technology lawyer Natasha Blycha unpacks why smart legal contracts may be AI's most important guardrail, how Africa's slower adoption could become a strategic advantage, and what a Mennonite community taught her about choosing the right technology.

Market Intelligence

OP-ED - Afrexim walked away from Fitch. Cassava's creditors can't.

Western rating agencies helped blow up the global economy, paid their fines, and kept it moving. Now they're the arbiters of African creditworthiness. But dismissing their scrutiny doesn't make the numbers disappear.

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - After the launch party: who actually benefits from AI?

What gets measured depends on who builds the scale.

Artificial Intelligence

OP-ED - Cue ominous film score: is the AI agent apocalypse upon us?

Last week, an AI startup watched its entire value proposition ship as a native feature. This is the story of what that moment reveals — and what some are betting it doesn't.

Fintech

The Trajectory Africa Distilled #02: Infrastructure-building Opportunities in Fintech

Trade credit, stablecoins, neobanks — where the smart money is heading next.

Career

OP-ED - AI augmentation in 2025: what Accenture's layoffs and a homeless Nigerian app founder reveal about the future of work

The question isn't whether you're augmented. It's whether you can deliver.

This Is Connectivity

OP-ED - Self-driving VC: Boardy, QuantumLight, and the end of the warm intro?

AI is automating the art of the warm introduction. What happens when connectivity becomes a product rather than a relationship?

Digital Economy

OP-ED - Bitcoin sells out? From peer-to-peer currency to Wall Street collateral: the maturation no one asked for

Bitcoin needs institutional stability to fulfill its promise. But that stability requires exactly the gatekeepers it was designed to circumvent.

Venture Capital

The Trajectory Africa Distilled #01: The Limits of Digitalisation in African Markets

In the opening instalment of her seven-part email series, Tayo Akinyemi explores why African fintech companies opt to build physical infrastructure to enable digital solutions - and identifies five opportunities emerging from this constraint.

This Is Connectivity

OP-ED - AI is dismantling consulting's oligopoly. If McKinsey's using ChatGPT, what are you paying for?

Ten years ago, a social media agency owner told me my consulting ambitions were naive delusions. He wasn't entirely wrong. But neither of us saw what was coming.

Infrastructure

OP-ED - GPUs to gigawatts: how Africa’s energy potential could re-shape the AI landscape

As AI’s hunger for power grows, Africa’s untapped energy reserves could redefine the continent’s role in the global tech race.

Artificial Intelligence

OP-ED - Africa's AI awakening: from Western brainrot to homegrown tech sovereignty

As Gen Z in the West abandons social media's endless scroll for "meaning," Africa is laying internet connectivity infrastructure at scale. Will it import yesterday's engagement-maximisation playbook or build for actual human flourishing?

Market Intelligence

OP-ED - What do SAG Ventures and Balloon Ventures have in common? The intermediary trap

Prince Nwadeyi's published research and Joshua Bicknell's operational experience expose the same problem: entrenched incentive structures don't serve those closest to real economic activity.

Startups

POD - Prince Nwadeyi on building financial services solutions corporates commission but won't execute themselves

Prince Nwadeyi unpacks how aligning incentives across value chains turns corporate muscle and founder execution into profitable innovation, and why Mustard Finance Group's reported 99.9% repayment rate proves the model works.

Impact Investing

OP-ED - M-KOPA’s decade of discovery: when patient capital buys time to pivot

M-KOPA’s lengthy path to profitability shows how patient capital can buy the time (and permission) to pivot until the real business emerges.

Digital Transformation

OP-ED - What can standing in an iPhone 17 queue in Tokyo reveal about digital power and control? Plenty.

Scarcity and sovereignty play out differently in Tokyo and Nairobi, but the underlying lessons for Africa’s tech builders are strikingly similar.